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Transformers: Special Edition (US - DVD R1)

Feature

Shia LaBeouf is Sam Witwicky, a geeky high school kid with a name nobody can pronounce who has just done well enough at school to qualify for a helping hand from his father to buy his first car. The car he chooses (or does it choose him?) just so happens to be an Autobot called Bumblebee, searching for the location of the Allspark, which has been lost somewhere on Earth, the coordinates of which have been written onto the glasses worn by… To be honest, none of that really matters. What really matters is that over twenty years since the toys first arrived, we finally get to see the giant robots we know and love knocking hell out of each other.

I was glad I went to see Transformers at the cinema over the summer. The grand scale of huge transforming robots doing battle belongs on the big screen and deserves to be watched on as big a TV as you can find now that the DVD has hit the shelves. However, the opportunity to watch the movie at home forced me to re-think my initial opinion. Yes, the special effects look amazing and the action sequences are well-constructed and very exciting, but watching the movie at home highlighted the limitations of the bits that happen in between.

This was Paramount’s big movie of the summer so you know they wanted to make damn sure everyone went to see it. As a result, on my second viewing I found that it suffered from ‘trying to please everyone’ syndrome, with a forced mix of action, comedy and a little romance that often makes the thinly-drawn characters say and do pretty dumb things. The one scene that highlighted this was the farcical messing around in Sam’s back garden, where the Autobots are trying to hide from his parents while he looks for the McGuffin. Okay, so we learn a lot about the relationships between the robots and the humans but it’s all a totally pointless exercise. Had that been me, I probably would have just said ‘Hey, Mum and Dad, check out the transforming cars out here!’ and while they would have been surprised at first, we could have got on with doing what really mattered.

In a movie where giant robots could very easily have stolen the show, Shia LaBeouf is the real star. In a summer double-bill of Transformers and Disturbia he has shown he can do the geeky kid with the heart of a hero thing better than any of his peers, and given that Transformers is a tale of male adolescent wish-fulfilment, he was the best choice the casting director could have turned to. The camera certainly likes the shape of Megan Fox, but she doesn’t have a great deal to do and the attempts by the screenwriters to give her character depth fall flat.

Jon Voight lends the movie an air of credibility but by the end when he’s chasing after Frenzy with a shotgun he looks terribly out of place, as does John Turturro from the moment he arrives on screen. Most unnecessary of all are the characters of Maggie and Glen, who exist only for exposition purposes. This may be acceptable if they were believable, but the idea that a twentyish-year-old girl and a comedy fat guy could be the only technical minds in the world capable of working out what the Decepticons are up to is both preposterous and a waste of a decent slice of the long running time.

All that aside, once we get fifty minutes into the movie and the robots start kicking each others' iron hides, the effects are some of the most impressive ever superimposed on film and you really get the feeling that these arrangements of pixels are believable fifteen-feet-tall two-ton monsters. As a Generation One kid, ever since I picked up my first Optimus Prime and more recently with the use of transforming robots in car ads, I’ve hoped a live action Transformers movie would go into production. Now that technology has caught up, I was glad to see giant robots on the big screen but watching Transformers at home really highlighted the lazy writing that was employed as an excuse to join the action scenes together.

Video

Here’s a question for you: how do you frame a scene so the audience can appreciate huge robots doing battle but still get close enough to the action to make the viewer feel part of it? The answer is: it’s tough, and even master action director Michael Bay doesn’t quite have the answer. Huge hunks of metal fill the picture as they fly across the screen at high speed and at times it can be difficult to tell exactly what’s going on. However, the quality of the 2.35:1 anamorphic picture on this release is clean, without any major problems. In some dark scenes the shadows can be a little grainy but this is only a minor complaint. The colours are strong, which draws particular attention to the heavily-tanned Megan Fox, but this is down to the general contrast level of the picture itself rather than an issue with the transfer to DVD.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is definitely one that benefits from being cranked up nice and loud on your surround system. A lot of work has gone into the sound editing, most of all the sounds generated by the robots, and the precision with which the effects have been crafted can really be appreciated here. The score sounds very much like the kind of epic military soundtrack we come to expect from Michael Bay’s movies but the music used to accompany the arrival of the Autobots to Earth is a slightly surprising but welcome choice. The balance of music, effects and dialogue is spot-on in a movie that’s meant to be loud and while there are nice little moments hidden away in the soundtrack, nothing is lost in the mix.

Extras

Michael Bay supplies a commentary track and I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy listening to it. As soon as I heard him say ‘Making a movie is like fighting a war’ at the beginning of his commentary for Armageddon, I knew I didn’t want to hear any more, but here he offers a pleasant journey through the whole filmmaking process. Be warned though: with all the talk of attending Transformers School at Hasbro and the meetings he had with Steven Spielberg, there is a lot of overlap with the featurettes on the second disc, so if you’re a few pennies short at the moment you won’t miss out on too much by picking up the one-disc release.

‘Our World’ is what you expect from a making-of featurette, including interviews with the cast and crew, behind-the-scenes footage and frequent appearances by producer Steven Spielberg. Deleted scenes are included in this featurette rather than being available separately on the disc. ‘Their War’ focuses on the Transformers themselves and we get to meet the fans, check out Transformers School and see prototype toys of characters that didn’t make it into the movie, as well as being shown in detail how the CG robots were created. The featurette that focuses on the Scorponok attack shows from beginning to end how the scene was put together, from choosing the location to combining CG with real footage. A gallery of concept art and a selection of trailers rounds out the package.

Overall

If I was thirteen years old, I’m certain that Transformers would be the best movie ever made! But I’m not thirteen years old and the plot holes and dodgy writing are more obvious to me now than they would have been back in my adolescence. Transformers is still an enjoyable movie for what it is and as an origin story, it provides the springboard for a franchise that will surely get bigger and better. The presentation on the disc is as good as you can expect and the DVD extras, while not exactly comprehensive, provide a decent insight into the filmmaking process from beginning to end.

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Really? This film was given six points? This terrible excuse for cinematic waste...gets 60% of a full 10? Honestly, this movie deserved less than a one. It has little to no story, and the little there is is utterly idiotic and completely rediculous. The dialogue is almost as predictable and cheesey as the plot. I mean, sure, we got a few funny jokes curtesy of Shia LeBough and a bunch of CGI, but nothing else. The sound effects were annoying to the point where watching it gave me an extreme headache. Honestly, you can't just put a bunch of special effects and explosions on the screen and call it a film. Special effects should be tools to bring the story to life--not the f*cking movie itself!!! Something Michael Bay doesn't, and will most likely never understand.

Squeek81 wrote: Jo3Horak wrote: "does this dvd even contain the few extra minutes that were released to the ImaX? if not... that's exactly why i'm waiting until next christmas."

-jo3

Its nothing that adds to the movie at all, no robot action, but your right there will another "all spark edition" coming out next year.especially just before they release the sequel....Bay has hinted that he would love to do a Pearl Harbour type special edition....

Chris Gould wrote: Come on then, all-knowing Transformers boy, tell me why they had to change the robot modes of the characters? Instead of using tried and tested character designs they made half of the bots look like s**t and stuck about a million redundant bits and pieces on all of em.

m@tt wrote: Not to keen on this film but i enjoyed the Citroen C4 Transformer ad, it looked more like a transformer if you know what i mean. maybe not.

I totally agree here. The robots were made too complicated with pointless bits and bobs poking out all over the place. Next time have the programmers from the Citroen adverts (which are brilliant!) do the robot designs...

A bit off topic, but anyway...... Scott, you metioned the Armageddon commentary and disregarding it. Please give it a second chance. It's a lot of fun and very interesting. Also listen to the second commentary on that movie just before and during the shuttle launches and hear the cameraman talk about what went into getting that on film. Amazing stuff.

It just falls under the Raiders/Pirates category; not much of a plot but lots of entertainment (just a great popcorn movie)...if it wasn't for the neverending 'ending' fight scene...and that's coming from somebody who loves violence and fighting scenes and exposions!!

Quote: Of course all of this was detailed in the extras on Disc 2, so you should already know that, right, almighty Leader?

Ah, the facetious tone. I never get tired of that. Why would I buy a film I found decidedly average? Come on then, all-knowing Transformers boy, tell me why they had to change the robot modes of the characters? WTF do those have to do with sponsorship? They don't bear any relevance to a particular decade either. Instead of using tried and tested character designs they made half of the bots look like s**t and stuck about a million redundant bits and pieces on all of em. Ironhide's gun had 10,000 polygons FFS. Megatron - who was hardly even in it - looked lame.

Why have the All-Spark at all? Why not the Creation Matrix. All the fans know what that is. There were hundreds of comics that they could have taken inspiration from that were much better than the cartoon as well. The original eight UK comics would have been a good place to start, and they would have had a cliffhanger ending. Instead Bay just did his usual dumb blowing stuff up bit.

Sorry Chris, but "unnecessary"? You do realize that this is 2007 and not 1984, don't you? You have to update the designs to prevent it from looking like a toy commercial from the '80s. PLUS the fact that Volkswagen (Bumblebee) and countless other European and Japanese-based car manufactures refused sponsorship for the film. AND a film this big needs a sponsorship to be affordable.

So, that's where GM came through. They provided all the vehicle designs for the film. With the exception of the Mustang for Barricade.

Of course all of this was detailed in the extras on Disc 2, so you should already know that, right, almighty Leader?

Chris Gould wrote: That's sacrilege! TF: TM is much better than this on story alone.

In your dreams, monkey boy!

No, not really... yeah, in terms of story perhaps, but com'on...wer'e talking about the difference between a climatic change (TF:TM) and an origin-type story (Bay's TF). The problem is that I doubt an Energon-hunt story in this day and age wouldn't have worked well, so the All Spark was used instead. Although, had they established that Energon was derived from nuclear waste or something like that, then perhaps maybe, but it just really wouldn't sell well.

Chris Gould wrote: That's sacrilege! TF: TM is much better than this on story alone.

Chris, it pains me to say it, but I honestly believe that Michael Bay's film is the better movie. You have no idea how much I hate to admit that. But I rewatched the animated movie earlier this year, and it does have some good moments, true. Unicron is undoubtedly cool. But the animation is poor, the script and dialogue is naff and impenetrable and the soundtrack abysmal. It has not aged well - and this coming from someone who sat it at the cinema in 1986 and lapped it up. Bay's film will also date of course, but it looked fantastic, its story worked well for newcomers and longtime fans alike, and most importantly, it had heart (something missing from almost every other Bay film incidentally). But then again, I always preferred the comics to the cartoons, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

As a TF fan, I liked it a lot. A very fair adaptation of the original concept, with some pretty cool action. Certainly flawed - I agree that the photography and/or editing was quite poor in a few places as you couldn't really follow what was happening. But still very 80s-style fun, and without a doubt a hell of a lot better than the original cartoon movie, which was nonsensical headache-inducing garbage.

"i didn't pick it up due to the fact that now, with every single dvd release we have in the US... for ANY major film... there's a special edition. 5 months later there's an 'ultimate edition'... and year later? several other editions. i'll buy it next christmas, once the sequel has a teaser poster."

I knew from the second it was announced Spielbergo was producing and that Bay was directing that this movie was doomed to fail to appease to me and/or any other G1 fan out there. Spielbergo can only give "the greatest ending ever told" and Bay has somehow confused slow motion for dire-ness in every scene.

Great review, I liked the film a little more however, but it's definately not because I feel it's a better film than you're giving credit for. It's a stupid, action crammed, drool-inducing CGIfest...and I fell for all of it!

Bouncy X wrote: well regarding Jazz....on the show, he spoke the black stereotype language of the early 80s....and this version spoke the black sterotype language of the 90s/00s ....so i dont see the problem.. The problem is that it's awful.

Also, the only homage-line in the movie that wasn't painfully awkward in the way that it was used was Prime's "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" which they slipped into his dialogue.

i would've liked this film so much more had it not been for the fact that half the cast performed as they normally do in your typical "Bay" flick... meanwhile the other half leaned more towards "Pee Wee's Playhouse" quality...

and seriously I don't know what crack you people are on, but Shia's career needs to die... like as in ASAP... watching him was dreadfully painful in the most overly horrid way imaginable... and the thought of him tainting "Indy" next, twists my stomach in ways I could not possibly describe.

Even though you guys like it because it is brainless action fluff, I couldn't even enjoy it on that level. The action just didn't captivate me (the explosions were cool though) and the characters just weren't engaging. I tried putting my thoughts of Bay's previous films aside when watching it and tried to enjoy it as it is, but this film totally dispels any thoughts I had that Michael Bay can make a good movie. Had the DVD included an isolated score and-sound-effects track, I would've gotten it. That way I wouldn't have to listen to the dialogue and just marvel at the pretty pictures and surround sound.

I'm not trying to troll this thread, I just want to be one of the dissenting people against it.

1. Making Bumblebee mute for nearly the whole entire movie and giving him sissy, "C3P0-ish" voice at the end.

2. Making Jazz sound like a gangbanger homey. I'm glad they kept in line with the cartoon and had a black man voicing him, but having him spew c**ppy lines like, "What's hood, b***h!", was a little too over the top.

Otherwise, I liked the film a lot and didn't for once feel like Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg raped my childhood......^_^

well regarding Jazz....on the show, he spoke the black stereotype language of the early 80s....and this version spoke the black sterotype language of the 90s/00s ....so i dont see the problem..they kept in line....i mean 2007 Jazz called people b***hes instead of homeys...same deal, different time lol

Umm yeah I got ripped on by just about everybody by saying it was alright for what it was. I know people who saw it 4 times or more that are in thier 20s. My boss who is 28 called it the greatest thing he has ever seen...

1. Making Bumblebee mute for nearly the whole entire movie and giving him sissy, "C3P0-ish" voice at the end.

2. Making Jazz sound like a gangbanger homey. I'm glad they kept in line with the cartoon and had a black man voicing him, but having him spew c**ppy lines like, "What's hood, b***h!", was a little too over the top.

Otherwise, I liked the film a lot and didn't for once feel like Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg raped my childhood......^_^

One of my best friends thinks this is the BEST MOVIE EVER and he's 23 :-p

This movie was great visually, but I do agree that the plot was weak and ripped off elements from a few movies and a few video games. The quote on the trailer that boasts "It's the most original film of the year" makes me laugh. Overall, it's enjoyable and well worth owning.

dbeamish wrote: The fights were impossible to make out what was going on. Also shame on you for not including screen grabs of Megan Fox's tummy.

while i personally didnt have much trouble with that aspect in theaters, i did find you actually were able to appreciate and see it better on dvd. maybe a theater screen was just too big for our eyes to focus on all of the carnage....but i have a 42inch tv and everything seemed easier to see.

All this movie intended to be was pure summer fun - kind of what I've come to expect from Michael Bay. Well, except for "Pearl Harbor" and "Bad Boys II" - for some reason, I really hated both of those movies. "The Island", although a rip-off of "Parts: The Clonus Horror" and "Logan's Run", was surprisingly good. And when it comes to Bay films, you kind of have to throw every ounce of logic and film smarts out of the window - we're not watching "The Shawshank Redemption", I guess - and just enjoy it for the loud, rollercoaster spectacle that it is. And yes, I'm old enough (31) to know and expect better, but when it comes to Michael Bay, that all just goes to the four winds. I loved this flick and can't wait to see if he improves with "Transformers 2"...

Lincoln6Echo wrote: You guys are being too harsh to this film. I'm 34, grew up on G1 TFs, and I loved this film.

And? I'm 32, ditto the above, and thought it was a triumph of style over substance. Too many unnecessary changes from the G1 design, some odd character choices, poor script, some totally disposable characters... I could go on. If you enjoyed it, fair enough, but I don;t think anyone's being too hard on anything.

I really disliked the film. It wasn't awful like "Armageddon" or "Pearl Harbor" was, but it was pretty bad all things considered. The movie goes on for far too long, the action isn't exciting (more like epileptic seizures with too much quick cutting), the comedy is awful and by the time it ended, I was mourning the loss of 2 1/2 hours I could've spent doing something worthwhile.

Granted, Shia LaBoeuf, Megan Fox and Peter Cullen deserved a lot better than the script and director afforded to them. I blame Spielberg for actually suggesting Bay to direct the thing in the first place.

You guys are being too harsh to this film. I'm 34, grew up on G1 TFs, and I loved this film. Of course, I'm more of a big action-blockbuster-lovin' type-of-guy (do I have enough hyphens there?), more than I'm a horror/zombie/slasher fan that you all seem to be here at DVDActive.

Anyway, were some parts of the film unneccesary? Sure...the thing with the Autobots in Witwicky's yard, yeah...that drew on a lot longer than it should. Was the Frenzy sequences too many? Yeah probably, but some were quite good. I loved the scene where he climbs out of Air Force One and gets into Barricade. Most noticably his first line of dialogue.

But all in all, I thought the over-all film was pretty smart as far as how the humans figured out what the robots were and what weapons were effective against them. And com'on, the final battle in the city was outstanding in all aspects.

Reasonably fair score there Scott. I didn't go much on this at all. Weak plot, couldn't tell what was going on half the time because of all the quick cuts during the fights, silly out of place comedy stuff with JT etc.